By Marc S. Sanders
Farce works best when the serious explodes into the outrageously absurd. When Jonathan Winters is a lawman who insists to Brian Keith “We gotta do something! I mean we really gotta do something!” you should know that whatever needs to be done has got to be out of unreasonable paranoia. Yet, the desperation and nonsensical fear is something you can empathize with because if I were told the states were being invaded, I’d surely think twice as I reach for the tennis racket in the back of my closet to use as a weapon.
Norman Jewison set aside his penchant for intense drama, socially reflected in films like In The Heat Of The Night, to direct a madcap satire imagined from the very real threats of The Cold War of the 1960s. At a time when submarines were being used for silent spying and espionage, a Russian sub gets stuck on a sand dune within the shallow ocean waters just beyond the New England town of Gloucester.
Alan Arkin as Rozanov leads a squad expedition off the vessel and intrudes upon the vacation home of Walt and Elspeth Whitaker (Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint). With a pistol pointing at the family of four, all that is really needed is a boat to nudge the helpless submarine back into the water. Yet, as word spreads of who has arrived, that’s not what the townsfolk will have you believe.
Before the age of the internet, hysteria still managed to catch fire with word of mouth. Reader, perhaps you heard of what happened when Orson Welles aired his radio show of H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds. Yes! Apparently, an alien invasion was really happening. What amuses me about Jewison’s film is that only a very few people even get an opportunity to see the Russians in person. Still, the fear overcomes everyone in town. The battle crazed old codger named Fendall (Paul Ford) dons his sword, and because he carries said sword, he seems most fitting to lead the charged brigade.
The Russians Are Coming. The Russians Are Coming. works like a pre-cursor picture to what the team of ZAZ would later do with Airplane! and The Naked Gun. The town switch board gets overrun. The men take hold of their rifles, but stop at the bar for a belt first. Two of the wives board a motorcycle with a side cab waving a poster that says “Alert” in front of their faces so they can’t see where they’re going. What’s anyone supposed to gather from saying “Alert,” anyway? It’s ridiculous, but the palpable tension of these fine folks is convincing when they come alive on this sleepy Sunday morning off the northeast coastline.
As comedic as Jonathan Winters always was, he takes it seriously as a deputy who does his best to lead while wearing his badge. Brian Keith is great at just being Brian Keith, the grump who tries to keep things in perspective but can’t because everyone else is ready to take up arms. Carl Reiner doesn’t have to do anything but occupy the screen and he’s funny. He’s the antsy father to an eleven-year-old boy who he chooses not to believe. In all seriousness, are we ever to take Carl Reiner seriously when he tries to offer a sound explanation for the Ruskies’ arrival?
Alan Arkin is just lovably speaking fluent Russian at times while trying to navigate his team around the island with no idea of what to do or what to say. He might be the most sound character of the whole picture. He’s lovable and hilarious.
The film takes place in one day and it’ll leave you curious with how it all gets resolved among the two misunderstood factions. Just when Norman Jewison ably reaches the highest summit of intensity, the oddest occurrence happens to shift the tide of the film’s characters and comedy.
Like other satire, particularly Sidney Lumet’s Network, The Russians Are Coming. The Russians Are Coming. stands prophetically. It was released in 1966, at the height of The Cold War with very fearful circumstances occurring in the news such as The Bay Of Pigs invasion. Earlier this year, a sense of nervousness arrived when it was announced that Russian submarines have docked themselves outside of Cuba, seemingly lined up with Florida. Anything could suddenly turn into a sad reality. Still, how we respond to scary possibilities is how we live through these moments.
You can laugh at The Bay Of Pigs crisis now. Could you do it back when it was actually happening? I wouldn’t know. Yet, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make light of the situation. Hogan’s Heroes, The Three Stooges, Mel Brooks, Charlie Chaplin and even the Looney Tunes ably served the purpose of needing to self deprecate our innate fears that would get all of us into nonsensical tizzies. The Russians Are Coming. The Russians Are Coming. was one of the best films to accomplish that feat.
We gotta do something! I mean we really gotta do something!
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 